The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to system for preventing vibration in one or more drives of an information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Many IHS's include IHS components that may operate by themselves or together to produce vibrations in the IHS, and those vibrations can sometimes operate to interfere with the IHS components. For example, most IHS's include drives such as, for example, hard disk drives (HDD's) for storing data used by the IHS, along with fans for cooling the IHS. As is known in the art, HDD's include drive platters that rotate in order to allow the drive platter to be read by a drive head. In some situations, operation of the fans to cool the IHS can induce rotational vibrations in the HDD's that can cause the drive head in an HDD to track poorly (e.g., become misaligned with the data track on the drive platter) and even engage the drive platter, which can damage the HDD and/or result in a loss of data. For example, fans in an IHS are typically operated at a minimum fan speed necessary to cool the IHS components, and as ambient temperatures and IHS loads increase, the speed of the fans is increased to provide more cooling. It is common that, at certain fan speeds (e.g., when the resonance frequencies of the drive and fans match), problematic rotational vibrations will be induced in the HDD's and cause the issues discussed above.
One solution to this problem is to monitor the rotational vibration in the HDD and, when the rotational vibration gets to a problematic level, attempt to maintain the drive head tracking by decreasing the data throughput rate on the HDD and/or increasing the current that controls the drive head in order to stabilize the drive head. Another solution to this problem is to test IHSs in a lab through their range of fan speeds to determine which fan speed ranges cause a data throughput reduction. For fan speed ranges that cause a data throughput reduction, HDD rotational vibration issues may then be assumed at those fan speed ranges, and the fan control system in the IHS may then be programmed to “step over” or bypass those fan speed ranges (also known as “notching” the fan speed curve.)
These conventional solutions suffer from a number of issues. For example, increasing fan speeds past problematic fan speed ranges will increase the noise produced by the IHS, and thus when the problematic fan speed range is inaccurately large, the IHS produces more noise than is necessary to prevent problematic HDD vibrations. Furthermore, reducing data throughput is undesirable, as it slows IHS operation. Further still, the lab testing discussed above either requires that testing be conducted for each IHS chassis type, or that an assumption be made that all IHS chassis types behave the same, and also assumes that the lab environment is similar to the environment in which the IHS will be used. However, as is known in the art, placing a mass (e.g., a book, another chassis, etc.) on top of an IHS chassis can change the resonance frequency of the IHS chassis and can cause a shift in the fan speed ranges at which problematic rotational vibrations are induced in the HDD's. Furthermore, different HDD models from different manufacturers have different chassis resonant frequencies and will experience problematic rotational vibrations at different fan speed ranges, and thus a “notched” fan speed curve for an IHS chassis with HDD's from a first manufacturer may produce problematic rotational vibrations in the IHS chassis using HDD's from a second manufacturer.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved drive vibration prevention system.